I went out on a walk today: the last day, officially, of my Easter break. I saw no reason to stay at home. I don’t know quite why I like this picture, except that it was one of those that worked out as anticipated; this is the picture I hoped it would be when I pressed the shutter. The road is the A1, a mile or so east of the town of Chester-le-Street, in County Durham.
A generally optimistic sheen to the day. Even the unused footbridge in the arse end of Victoria station has had a new coat of paint, and I suspect the pigeons know this somehow.
The last time anyone other than myself or Joe was depicted on the blog was 4th January, the afternoon before Bojo the Clown put us all under house arrest again. Since then, portrait opportunities have been very rare. This can almost be considered a crowd by recent standards. Though even the dog now takes its lead from us and remains apart. Who’s going to actually start to rebuild the bridges? It won’t just happen.
The family that texts together, survives house arrest together. One of the few signs of human life in Hebden Bridge this afternoon.
For now, I’m not saying anything about the reimposition of house arrest that comes tomorrow. The weather was far too good for that, and far too good to stay at home, so I went out and bagged another of my County Top walks while I could still do so without breaking some ridiculous new legislation. And a good walk it was too, given added interest by walking over this gargantuan piece of engineering, the Humber Bridge. This was the longest suspension bridge in the world when it was built in 1981: 1.4 miles long, it took me over half an hour to cross, and the colossal stanchions are over 500 feet high.
Great bridges to have featured on this blog? In the UK at least, the Tay Bridge, the Forth Bridge, Devil’s Bridge, Hebden Bridge 🙂 (OK, maybe not the last one). There was that very long one in Lisbon too. It’s good to get out and see parts of my country that I’ve not seen, which is the ultimate point of my walking project. It’s good, and it’s healthy, and Johnson and his cabal of losers can all piss off. Oh, I said I wouldn’t say anything about it. Sorry.
Far too nice a morning to stay indoors today and wait like little sheep to be told that we need to stay indoors a lot more, like until Christmas. A walk along the Rochdale Canal in the morning lightened the spirits and boosted the immune system, which is, of course, why we do it.
One of those shots where it is very tough to get every perpendicular and parallel JUST so… but I gave it a go.
More rain. The river is high, although I’ve seen it higher. Shelter seemed a sensible option this afternoon.
Another day for spring foliage to fill up the bandwidth. 2,803 days in and there are still some corners of the home town worth depicting. The bridge has been here since 1510, or thereabouts, and seems good for a while yet. Whether the same is true of the photographer, who knows…?
We didn’t just visit Scotland for a melancholy afternoon at Raith Rovers. On the second day of three, we drove both ways across this fine transportation architecture. The new Forth Bridge was built after the old one started pinging apart a few years ago. Like the other two monumental bridges — now, one rail, two road, and one from each of the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries — it is an elegant structure, worth crossing just for the hell of it.
Being 42 